A new study published states your daily cup of coffee may help to reduce the risk of heart failure.

Researchers found that overall, those who reported drinking one or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day had “an associated decreased long-term heart failure risk.”

For the report, published in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal yesterday, researchers used machine learning to examine data from a large study from the Framingham Heart Study, referencing this data against two other studies, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study and the Cardiovascular Health Study.

“Each study included at least 10 years of follow-up, and, collectively, the studies provided information on more than 21,000 U.S. adult participants,” researchers said.

When analyzing the Framingham Heart and the Cardiovascular Health studies, researchers noted that when compared to non-coffee drinkers, the risk of heart failure decreased by 5% to 12% for each cup they drank each day. As for the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, researchers noted that those who drank at least two cups of java per day had a 30% lower risk of heart failure, while the risk of heart failure remained the same for those who drank only one cup or drank no cups of coffee per day.

As for decaffeinated coffee, researchers noted that this beverage did not have the same benefits as caffeinated coffee, with one study suggesting that decaffeinated coffee has an opposite effect, possibly increasing the risk of heart failure.

The researchers also cautioned that the findings only focused on black coffee.

“While unable to prove causality, it is intriguing that these three studies suggest that drinking coffee is associated with a decreased risk of heart failure and that coffee can be part of a healthy dietary pattern if consumed plain, without added sugar and high-fat dairy products such as cream,” said Penny M. Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., R.D.N., immediate past chairperson of the American Heart Association’s Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Council Leadership Committee. Kris-Etherton is also an Evan Pugh University professor of nutritional sciences and distinguished professor of nutrition at The Pennsylvania State University, College of Health and Human Development in University Park.